A California regulator has settled her successful lawsuit alleging a culture of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard. Now under ownership of Microsoft, the gaming company will pay around $54 million as part of the deal, according to a press release from the California Department of Civil Rights (CRD).
The CRD (formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing or DFEH) filed this lawsuit in July 2021, alleging that Activision Blizzard had a “frat boy” culture in which women were subject to sexual harassment and gender discrimination. . After the lawsuit, employees left, executives including then-Blizzard president J. Allen Brack and Blizzard's former senior vice president of human resources left the company, and months later, The Wall Street Journal reported that CEO Bobby Kotick had known about allegations of sexual misconduct for years.
However, as part of the settlement agreement, the CRD said that “no court or independent investigation has substantiated any allegations” of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard and that there was no evidence of wrongdoing on Kotick's part. according The New York Times. (The company told the SEC last year that an internal investigation found “no evidence to suggest” that top executives ignored allegations of gender harassment.) WSJ also tech/activision-blizzard-to-pay-around-50-million-to-settle-lawsuit-that-spurred-microsofts-takeover-4dc1178b?mod=followamazon”>reported on the lawsuit on Friday.
If a court approves the settlement, Activision Blizzard will pay around $54,875,000 to “cover direct relief to workers and litigation costs,” of which $45,750,000 will go to “a settlement fund dedicated to compensating to the workers,” says the CRD.
Months after the California lawsuit, Microsoft announced that it intended to acquire Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion deal. After a series of regulatory hurdles, that deal finally closed in October. Kotick will remain at Activision Blizzard until the end of the year.
